Dance Games, Part 1

Do your dancers ask to play games in dance class or request something “fun”?

As hard as I try to keep class engaging and entertaining, many of my recreational classes still ask for “games” to play. Often, I will turn to creative movement exercises and label them as “games”. I also like to throw in some vocabulary builders. If you’re looking for some new ideas for dance games, here are some alternatives to Freeze Dance (although if you like Freeze Dance, here are a few these variations on Freeze Dance).

When I started gathering ideas for this post and putting together this list, I discovered a bunch of new games. There are simply too many for one post, so I will spread them out in a few different posts. This post will cover games for Terminology and Vocabulary Review.

Terminology & Vocabulary Review

Dance Quiz

Basic vocabulary review. Here are few ideas to keep it interesting:

Pick-a-card: Write down terminology or combinations of steps on note cards. For younger students, you could draw positions or help them read it. One at a time, have a dancer pick a card and they must do that step. For younger students, they get to be the teacher in the front of the room and demonstrate the step while everyone else practices.

The Line-Up: Students stand in a line in the back of the studio. Starting with the first person, teacher gives them a dance step. If they do it correctly, they get to move up one step. If they don’t know it, they pass and the next person gets the same step until someone knows it. Continue down the line with a new term, going back to the beginning of the line when you run out of dancers. Goal is to get to the front line (we usually play 3 steps).

The Line-Up, fast version: I play this version with larger classes. Students stand in a line (facing away from the mirror to discourage peeking) and all close their eyes. Teacher says a vocabulary step and every does it in place (keeping eyes closed). Dance teacher taps anyone who is doing it correctly on the shoulder and they get to move up one step. We usually open our eyes at this point and I pick someone to demonstrate what the step was. Repeat process. Keep going until someone moves all the way up to the front line.

Truth or Dare: Teacher asks dancer, “Truth or Dare?”. When dancer says “truth”, ask terminology questions (how many sounds in a shuffle hop step, which direction is upstage). For “dare”, they must demonstrate a specific dance step. You can add “double dare”, which would be a harder dance step.

Roll The Dice

You will need some large foam dice. Leave one plain (with dots or numbers) and the other add terminology (I used masking tape so that I could change the words for different classes).

Dice Quiz: Have a child roll the movement dice and the number dice and they have to do that many repetitions of the step. If they don’t know the step you can call them out, and see who is left standing, or let them all remain. My kids love it and it’s a great way to test vocabulary.

Dice Choreography: Have each child roll the pair of dice and use the steps to create a dance in succession (two shuffles, four flaps, one buffalo). Sometimes it turns out great and is a very inventive way of creating choreography and other times it’s silly or extremely difficult to transition but it’s still a fun challenge. You can expand on this idea for tap, by creating rules for rhythm. For example, we play where every sound must have one count (so shuffle step would be “1 2 3”), and the kids had to figure out what count we ended on. You can also add “hold” to one side of the dice, so they will need to count “holds” in the combination.

Dance Pie

(or Cake, or Pizza…or whatever you want to make! Maybe a salad or smoothie? Cornucopia?)I like to use this with age 3-8 year olds in my tap classes – lots of creative movement. We create a dance recipe using steps as ingredients.

Form a circle and roll out the dough – we usually roll our arms like in Patty Cake or stomp on the ground in tap (for pie or pizza… maybe grease the pan for cakes?)

Ask for a dance step we can add to the pie. Ask how many and what foot to start with.

Dance the step all together and “lift up” the ingredients and throw them in the pie (I like to make different steps heavier or lighter… some are sweet, some are sour, some must be sprinkled, some must be tossed – it adds to the fun!)

Repeat until your “pie” is full!

We march (or another traveling step) around in the circle to mix the pie together, roll the dough on top and pop it in the oven – have to work all together to lift such a heavy pie

Wait.. then eat! Sometimes we count to 8 or do another activity while it’s “baking”, then take it out and eat it up to make sure we remember all of our steps.

Hot Potato / Pass The Beanbag

Form a circle standing or sitting. Pass the beanbag (or stuffed animal) until the music stops. Whoever it stops on must do their favorite dance step. Or you can have the teacher assign them a step.

Sometimes we play where they have to keep doing the step until the next person gets stopped with the beanbag.

The Airplane Game

Ages 3-6, Sung to the tune of Frere Jacques:

“Chasse chasse,

bourree bourree,

clap clap clap, clap clap clap

running like an airplane, running like an airplane

make a shape, make a shape”

Each time, replace the dance terms/clapping with whatever other dance terms you’d like to practice. Once they get the hang of it, you can add in directions (tip toe to the right or dance in a circle).